


Just A Shot In The Dark

by Juxtaposie



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/M, Hayffie Summer Week, Idiots in Love, Lots of kissing, Post-Mockingjay, learning how to be together, rating for some mentions of sex, relationships are work people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 05:23:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20204437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juxtaposie/pseuds/Juxtaposie
Summary: No one had moved for at least an hour when Haymitch groaned, “Honey, just take off some clothes.”Effie, who was pulling the neckline of her tight dress away from her body as she melted into the couch, barely had the energy to be offended. She certainly didn’t have the energy to sit up and glare, but there was just enough left in her for a soft exclamation of, “Well! What a thing to say! Just take off my clothes.”Haymitch and Effie, learning how to actually be together. Written for Hayffie Summer Week 2019.





	Just A Shot In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> So it's Hayffie Week! I somehow managed to make one story fit, like, four of the prompts. Most of this fic is inspired by just how fucking weird sobriety is - seriously, you feel like you're going through puberty again learning how to handle the emotions you've been pushing away - but the rest of it is inspired by Lady Antebellum's "Just A Kiss Goodnight" because its a Hayffie post-Mockingjay song if ever there was one.
> 
> Enjoy!

No one had moved for at least an hour when Haymitch groaned, “Honey, just take off some clothes.”

Effie, who was pulling the neckline of her tight dress away from her body as she melted into the couch, barely had the energy to be offended. She certainly didn’t have the energy to sit up and glare, but there was just enough left in her for a soft exclamation of, “Well! What a thing to say! Just take off my clothes.”

“The AC’s been out for two days,” Haymitch said from his place in the overstuffed armchair by the empty fireplace. “It’s pushing a hundred outside. You don’t need to impress me.”

“As if I ever wore anything to impress you,” she groused. “Why, the very thought-”

“Stop,” he broke in tiredly. “Please. It’s too hot.”

“Wh-” Effie stammered, finally sitting up and throwing Haymitch an outraged frown. “I was laying here minding my own business and then you just started demanding I undress.”

He groaned. “No one’s demanding- That’s not- I just meant-”

“So you don’t want me to take my clothes off?” she asked pointedly, arranging the carefully ironed pleats of her linen skirt across her knees before folding her hands primly in her lap. A bead of sweat crept down the small of her back as she watched him, her eyes wide in feigned innocence. 

The heat had made them both sluggish and Haymitch wouldn’t look at her, choosing instead to stare at the cracked plaster on the ceiling. Effie folded her arms across the pile of pillows she’d been leaning on and tucked her legs up under her demurely, but all that calculated posturing wasn’t enough to draw his eye and she soon gave up, too tired to go on with the performance. Settling back into the couch again, she grabbed up the paper fan she’d dropped on the coffee table and attempted to make herself more comfortable. 

“This is your home,” Haymitch said softly after several minutes of silence. “I want you to feel like you can be comfortable. That’s all I meant.”

“Oh,” Effie responded quietly after a beat before adding, more out of habit than anything else, “Thank you.”

The silence that descended after her platitude wasn’t quite as comfortable as it had been before Haymitch had opened his mouth. It was all well and good for them to acknowledge that Twelve was her home - for the time being, anyway - but for him to want her to be comfortable danced dangerously close to admitting he could sense the attraction that had been building between them - an attraction Effie had stopped fighting months ago. 

Once upon a time her course of action would have been clear. They’d been together a handful of times, when emotions had been running high, and even though Haymitch had always let her make the first move he’d never hesitated to take what he wanted once he knew she was willing to give it to him. All she’d had to do was darken his doorstep after everyone else had turned in for the night; there had never been any fanfare. He didn’t care what she was wearing or what she looked like - he liked her best naked and on her knees (though whether she had his cock in her mouth or he was driving into her from behind didn’t seem to matter.)

As badly as she wanted that again - dreamed about it, longed for it, thought about it while she touched herself in the darkness of her own room - there was something holding her back. 

It was the same something that had driven her out of the city and into the quiet, unassuming arms of the still-rebuilding District Twelve where she could fuss over her boys and support the young woman who’d saved them all. It was the same something that had her on the phone all day talking through red tape so Peeta could have the best care at a moment’s notice when his last growth spurt had made his prosthetic painful; the same something that made sure Haymitch stayed occupied so he wouldn’t think of drinking; the same something that reminded Katniss, with actions instead of words, that she wasn’t alone, ever. 

It was love, and Effie was beginning to suspect she’d never really felt it before. 

She’d had her share of relationships. A handful of them had been serious, and one had even been serious enough to lead to an engagement, but nothing had worked out in the end. Effie had always ended it, usually by dropping the bomb that she’d been unfaithful, and if that hadn’t been enough to do it she’d simply stopped taking their calls. It hadn’t seemed like such a terrible thing when she’d done it. The life of an Escort was fast-paced; if you didn’t keep up you were left behind, and nothing was as terrible as being forgotten. (It was why Effie still remembered every single name she’d ever pulled out of the Reaping Ball, even if the rest of the country had forgotten.) Boyfriends fell out of favor just as easily as fashion, and were only slightly more trouble to change than a pair of shoes.

But it wasn’t just boyfriends. It was friends too, and casual acquaintances, one-night stands and coworkers, even her own parents. It was her entire life, and she’d justified it by telling herself that some sacrifices were necessary to be one’s best self. 

Not that it mattered in the end. Her best self hadn’t been good enough for the Capitol - “It’s not a matter of personal failure, Effie,” her therapist kept saying - and they’d punished her by breaking her down, again and again, until she couldn’t even remember who she’d been before they started. 

Worse, somehow, was that after everything, after Coin’s assassination and Snow’s Death and Katniss’ banishment, when she’d started sifting through the wreckage of her life she’d found things she hadn’t seen before. Her compassion and kindness had been self-serving and self-centered. Her personable nature was often thoughtless, and careless with other people’s feelings. All that ability to carry a conversation had not come with the grace to think before she spoke. She’d been a beautiful woman - and god, how vain, how proud, how consumed with her own appearance. 

Not even that had been left untouched. She had scars now, where before there had only been smooth, milk-white skin; lash marks and electrical burns, a handful of fingernails that had never really grown back, the scar beneath her eye where the skin on her cheekbone had split open. 

(She’d broken the mirror in her bathroom the first time she’d been alone with the damage, and the mirror in Haymitch’s guest bathroom (her bathroom now, she supposed) remained covered when not actively in use. She didn’t like the way she still flinched whenever she saw a mirror, startled that she wasn’t alone, before realizing the woman she didn’t recognize was, in fact, herself.)

Still, she’d found some good things once the dust had settled. Haymitch’s passion project - a keen interest in rare and banned books - was of enough interest to the new government that they’d offered him funding, and when it was gently suggested that he hire someone to do the meticulous record keeping the funding necessitated, somehow her name had come up. 

She tried not to be too bitter that it had taken him two years to even spare her a thought. She’d been nothing but a thorn in his side, after all, and she’d fully expected to never see him again once he’d finished arguing for her pardon. She’d spent the intervening time doing things (and drugs and people) she wasn’t proud of in an attempt to cope, but Haymitch had needed her, so when he’d called she’d come running.

That had been nine months ago, almost to the day. (She’d have to tell them, eventually, that she’d fit her entire life into the trunk and two suitcases she’d brought with her; that her salary from the games had been seized as reparations, that her things had been auctioned off to pay for legal fees; that the government housing had been a one-room studio apartment with no windows and a shoddy lock, and people had shouted at her on the streets and scrawled things on her door in red paint, things like _traitor_, and _child killer_, and _district whore_, and she’d gone home with _so many people_ simply to avoid being alone in her tiny prison cell of an apartment.) Her victors had welcomed her with open arms - Peeta had anyway, and Katniss and Haymitch hadn’t refused the hugs she’d forced on them - and they’d made a place for her in their strange little lives.

Whatever was happening between her and Haymitch had started from the very first day she’d stepped off the train. They were both different people than they’d been during the Games, or even at the end of the war, and they’d had to relearn how they fit together, but the attraction she’d always felt had still been there. It had been such a relief to feel something good that Effie had never even tried to fight it. 

And she couldn’t even walk around their shared living space in her nightgown. 

She blamed Haymitch entirely. If she’d had her way they would have been happily navigating the buoyant waters of a budding relationship, kissing and canoodling despite the oppressive heat, and having a truly obscene amount of sex. Haymitch was the one being weird, the one pulling away and holding back - and it wasn’t for lack of attraction. She’d caught him watching her so many times she wanted to scream at him to just _do it_, just kiss her already, because she couldn’t take the tension much longer. 

But real love wasn’t selfish like that, so Effie maintained both her distance and her composure. 

Still, she supposed, there was no reason to sweat through her dress. 

“Well,” she said, her voice too loud even with the whir of the ceiling fan. “I’ll go strip down then.”

Haymitch hummed in agreement, but when Effie looked at him, his eyes were closed, his face slack. He was close to falling asleep again. 

Peeling herself off the couch, she all but ran from the room. Once upstairs behind the closed door of her bedroom, she spent almost 20 minutes laying out different slips and nightgowns, agonizing over what was too heavy and what was too revealing, before finally deciding on white cotton number that fell to mid thigh. The bodice was lined in a peachy pink, the straps were white ribbons, and the whole thing was edged in delicate lace. 

It was substantial enough it might have passed as a dress if she added sleeves to it, so Effie stripped down to her panties and pulled it over her head, immediately grateful for the cool feel of the cotton on her overheated skin. She unpinned her hair and combed out the gentle teasing, then tied it up in a simple ponytail to remove what was left of her makeup.

She debated on slippers and a dressing gown, but decided they defeated the purpose of stripping down, and finally, after chewing her thumbnail down to the quick in nervous anticipation, she padded down the stairs on bare feet and made her way back to the living room. 

Haymitch was nowhere to be found. 

***

After the strange disappointment over her housemate’s absence, Effie whiled away the afternoon sipping on iced tea, reading in fits and starts when the heat was bearable and napping when it wasn’t. Haymitch never reappeared and she didn’t have the nerve to go looking for him. She could hear him moving around the house, sometimes in the study which was quickly becoming a library, and sometimes upstairs in his bedroom which now doubled as a workspace, but she didn’t bother offering her help for whatever he was working on. If he needed her, he would come get her.

She didn’t see him again until the sun had started to set, but movement in the doorway caught her eye and when she looked up from her trashy novel he was standing there propped against the door jamb, the fingers of one hand drumming nervously against his thigh. 

Effie didn’t think she was imagining the way her heart sped up a little at the sight. He had a year and a half of sobriety behind him, and with proper nutrition he’d lost a fair amount of weight. His arms and face were tanned a deep olive from days in the sun helping the building crews, his gray eyes the color of a thunderhead. His hair was more salt and pepper than black now, gray growing liberally at his temples and threading through the stubble that was just on the verge of becoming a beard. There was a strong chin hiding behind all that facial hair, and just above that a full-lipped, expressive mouth. Thick brows and a prominent nose completed what Effie had always thought of as a very handsome face, especially now that there was some good color in it, and his eyes were clear and bright. 

There were prominent lines around his mouth, and she watched as one side ticked up, twitching like he was trying to hide a smile, and it was only then that she realized he’d asked her a question. 

“Oh,” she exclaimed softly as heat flooded her face. She wanted to hide behind the open pages of her book. “I’m sorry, what?”

She got a full smile in exchange for her blunder, but it disappeared quickly behind a large, tan hand, as he rubbed at his mouth. His eyes darted around the room, landing on her and looking away, as though he wanted to say something but didn’t quite know how to say it. 

“What?” she pressed again, sitting up a little, unsure if she was annoyed or amused. 

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head and still trying not to smile. “Just, uh, dinner.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “Whenever you want it.”

Disappointed he hadn’t taken the opportunity to tease her, she put her book down and pushed to her feet. “Thank you.”

He nodded in response and then he was gone, and Effie followed him into the kitchen with her heart in her throat. 

They ate in an uneasy silence, a simple fare of cold, creamy vegetable soup, hearty bread, and the last of the chicken liver mousse Effie hadn’t been able to stop herself from buying when she’d seen it in a cold case on her last trip back to the Capitol. The tension thickened between them, spurred on by the continued silence, and all their attempts to make small talk, whether about their shared work or their slow day, fell flat, neither of them able to pick up the thread. 

Something was building between them, and Effie loved it and hated it - loved it for where it might lead, and hated it for what she might lose. 

Mother Nature chose to take things out of their hands, breaking the stilted silence with a thunderclap so loud the windows rattled. They both jumped, and Effie shrieked, her spoon flying out of her hand to clatter across the floor. Outside, a summer storm started. 

She put both hands flat on the table, her vision graying at the edges as she struggled with a sudden wave of dizziness. Her heart beat loudly in her ears, so loud it almost drowned out the roar of the rain, and she closed her eyes against the next bright flash of lightning, her hands curled into fists, nails scraping against the wooden tabletop. 

It had never rained in the Capitol the way it rained in Twelve during the summer, like the sky had opened up and every raindrop was racing to the ground, the wind strong enough to pull shingles off roofs and shutters off windows, the thunder loud enough to shake the house. 

She couldn’t endure loud noises anymore. Not since her imprisonment, not since being awoken, night after night, with thundering so loud she thought her ears would bleed, light so bright it was like looking at the sun even with her eyes closed tight, for hours on end, until she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept, and no matter how much she screamed she could never hear her own voice and it never stopped no matter how she begged and broke her nails scratching at the seam of the sealed door-

“Hey,” Haymitch said gently, nudging her in the arm with his elbow, still holding his own spoon. “You’re okay. It’s just a little thunder.”

She let out a shaky exhale, laughing nervously. “Just a little thunder! I thought the windows were going to break.”

Haymitch waved her concern away, and took a big bite of bread. “Nah,” he said, still chewing. “Unless the wind blows a tree down we’ll be fine.”

An unseen hand squeezed her heart. “Unless the wind _what?_”

“Blows a tree down?” he repeated. “You know, a tree? Those tall things with all the green at the top.”

Effie frowned, hurt that he was being so flippant about something that obviously worried her. 

“Nod for me if you know what a tree is,” he teased, the corner of his mouth tipping upwards.

“You’re horrible,” she snapped, pushing away from the table. “And if you can’t be nice then I’m going to my room.”

Haymitch laughed, lifting his hands in a placating gesture. 

“Alright, I’m sorry,” he said, but Effie was too out of sorts to accept his apology. She stood up, fully intending to march out of the room until he grabbed her, his long fingers easily circling the delicate bones of her wrist, and it was like lightning striking all over again. Her heart sped up as goosebumps broke out on her arms and legs.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, still holding onto her. “I was just teasing. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Effie licked her lips, fanning her fingers out so her wrist flexed in his grip, and as he let go his fingertips trailed over the back of her hand, just ghosting down the first knuckle of her thumb. “You’re always just teasing,” she rebuked gently, unable to meet his gaze even as she leaned back against the table, so close to him her knee bumped his thigh.

“You make it so easy,” he replied. 

She huffed as she pushed away from the table again, fully intent on stomping to her room like pouting child, but this time when he stopped her it was with a hand on her waist. His palm was hot through the thin fabric of her slip, and she could feel each fingertip searing into her skin as he pulled her closer, until she was standing between his parted knees. He looked up at her through dark lashes, curls falling across his eyes, and before she could stop herself Effie was pushing them back off his forehead, threading her fingers through the thick locks. He watched her passively, barely even blinking as she ran her thumb across one eyebrow, down the slope of his nose, out along his cheekbone and in again along the line of his jaw until her thumb rested just beneath the prominent swell of his lower lip. Only the heaving of his chest betrayed he was at all affected by her touch. 

“Haymitch,” she said softly. “Don’t you want to kiss me?”

His other hand found her thigh, his fingers skimming the hem of her nightgown. “You know I do, sweetheart.”

“Well,” she sighed, smiling coyly, “go on then.”

He gave a small, sudden laugh, his shoulders hitching as he wrapped both arms around her thighs and pulled her in tight against him, sliding to the edge of the chair so she was flush with his chest. “I’m not sure I’d know what to do with you afterwards,” he said, his voice muffled as he buried his face against her sternum, his curly hair tickling the tops of her breasts where the nightgown left them exposed. 

Tucking a knuckle beneath his chin, she forced him to meet her gaze, and said, “You know exactly what to do with me,” her voice low and breathless with anticipation. 

Then, because she couldn’t resist any longer, she ducked her head and kissed him. 

His lips parted as he sucked in a surprised breath and for a few horrible moments he was frozen, his bottom lip trapped between both of hers. Effie pulled back, already dreading she’d made a terrible mistake - she’d made a mess of it, just like she’d made a mess of everything since her imprisonment, and any second now he was going to ask her to leave, tell her he couldn’t bear to have her around any longer, and she would go without a fight because she _loved him _and wanted him to be happy and safe and sober, even if that meant she could never have a place in his life-

He was groping at the table while she panicked, and it wasn’t until his hands found her hips that she realized he hadn’t been flailing blindly - he was pushing things out of the way, making space before he guided her to sit on the edge of the table. Her thighs parted for him, working on muscle memory, but it was all she could do to catch herself on her hands before he was on her. He palmed the back of her head, fingers threading through her the ends of her ponytail and tugging gently as he kissed her, his mouth slanting hungrily over hers. 

Haymitch kissed her like a man possessed, and Effie was only too willing to let herself be consumed. Her lips parted for his tongue while her heels hooked the backs of his knees to give herself leverage to rock against him, and they both groaned at the sudden contact. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she kissed him back, moaning again when he grabbed a handful of her ass and pulled her hips tightly to his. He made a fist in her hair, tilting her head back so he could kiss down the column of her throat, nipping gently at the underside of her chin, and sucking on her pulse point until she whined.

“No marks,” she chided gently, still mindful of her public persona, but then she giggled, almost lightheaded with the sudden realization that there was no one to hide from. “Oh, what the hell. I don’t suppose it matters anymore.”

Haymitch paused, his head bent and his forehead pressed to her shoulder, and Effie stroked a hand back over his unruly hair, cupping the back of his head to hold him to her. He was breathing hard, his shoulders heaving under her arm, and when he made no move to kiss her again she squirmed. He was half-hard between her legs, and she was already soaking wet just from his kisses, and she couldn’t resist grinding against him. She wanted him hard and fast, wanted him to leave bruises on her hips and hickeys on her breasts, wanted him to fuck her until she couldn’t walk right- 

-but when she palmed the front of his pants, eager to stroke him even through the fabric, he grabbed her wrist and said, “Wait.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest. “All right,” she said, swallowing reflexively as her ever-present anxiety chose that moment to remind her of its ugly existence. She’d been wrong. She _had _made a mistake; she’d completely misread the situation and he’d only been playing along because she was a warm body, and had she ever really been anything else to him? She was a toy, to be used and discarded once he’d gotten what he wanted. That was all she’d ever been to _anybody_.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing him gently out of the way as she stood. “I didn’t - I wasn’t thinking, I just got carried away.”

“It’s alright,” he soothed, grabbing her around the waist even as she tried to extricate herself from his embrace.

“No.” She shook her head, pushing gently at his chest. “No it’s not. I shouldn’t have assumed you’d want-”

He sighed, exasperated, and cut her off by taking her face in both hands and kissing her soundly. She grabbed his wrists, meaning to push him off, but all she did was hold him in place, whimpering as his mouth worked slowly on her own. 

Breaking away, he rested his forehead against her own and said, “I want.”

She let out a sound that was half a laugh, half a sob, and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, pressing her cheek over his heart. “I’m sorry,” she said again while he rubbed soothing circles into her back. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s not as if any of this is new.”

“Isn’t it though?” he pressed. “It’s a new world. We’re new people. I think I heard somewhere that you have to work at relationships…”

There was something vulnerable in his voice, something she’d only heard a handful of times before, usually when he was so drunk he was raving, and all his fears came pouring out and he told her over and over how he wished he was dead, how he deserved it, how in ten, fifteen, twenty years he hadn’t brought a single child home. 

There was no edge of despair now, just something soft and hopeful, something scared, something that had her shaking in his arms. 

“Is that something you want?” she asked, finally daring to look at him. “A relationship?”

He sighed, sliding his hands across her back to cup her shoulders. “Effie,” he started, before pausing, licking his lips nervously. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want-” and he must have felt her pulling away, hurt and scared, because he wrapped his arms around her again, so tightly her heels left the floor- “but I do know I don’t want you to leave. Ever.”

Her smile felt shaky and weak, and she let go of him long enough to swipe at the trail of wetness that was rolling down her left cheek. “Well,” she said. “What shall we do then? I suppose we need to talk.”

“Probably,” he agreed, dropping a kiss in her hair. 

“I don’t want to talk right now,” she continued. She felt shaken, the edges of her feelings ragged and raw. She needed time to think, to soothe herself. Things would look better when the sun came up. 

“Me either,” he said. 

“And sex is off the table?”

Haymitch sighed again. “I think so. For now anyways, until we can work some things out. Sorry.”

Her smile brightened, and she grabbed his face in both hands, squishing his cheeks a little, and give him a quick kiss. “It’s all right. We have all the time in the world.”

“I’m pushing fifty, honey,” he said with a small laugh, and Effie found herself laughing along with him, burying her face in his neck and she held him tighter. 

“Haymitch,” she said slowly as an idea occurred to her. “We could just… kiss.”

“Just kiss?” he asked dubiously.

“Just kiss,” she said with a coy smile, “with no expectations of anything else. Though, if you’re very good, I might let you touch me over my clothes.”

He hummed, his brow scrunched in thought, then bent suddenly to grip the backs of her thighs and pull her off her feet, laughing when she squealed. She wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles at the small of his back and giggling as he carried her into the living room. 

“Sweetheart,” he said as he sat down in the armchair, settling her in his lap, “when we’re done you’re gonna be _begging_ me to touch you.”

Outside the rain continued to pour, and there was no doubt in her mind that he was right.


End file.
